"Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien" by Alex Vernon also caught my eye. His novel IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS is one I find even more haunting than THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.
"Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien" by Alex Vernon caught my eye as I am of that generation. I don't know O'Brien's work, so I went to Wesley Beal's lengthy review in the Arkansas Times. One measure the author Vernon applies to O'Brien's wartime experience is "moral injury," or "the hurt and trauma that follow from betrayal of moral virtues, especially when one is himself compromised in that betrayal." This concisely sums up the lot of draft-age US males of that era, roughly 1964-1975, and is one reason so many American males had difficulty adjusting to civilian life -- and remain bitter today.
I have been thinking something similar to moral injury is undoubtedly occurring in the Israeli military and society at large as the assault on a largely civilian population in Gaza continues. There is conscription there and even women are eligible but not certain religious sects. The "moral injury" occurring in Israel and among its friends abroad must be stupendous.
My view of the current conflict in Gaza (and the West Bank) has been decisively shaped by reading "The hundred years' war on Palestine: a history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017" by Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor from a Palestinian family with deep roots in the soil and history of Palestine. It was published in 2021 and now out as a paperback. It is an academic book, deeply researched and amply documented, but also sourced from family documents involving his accomplished forebears. What has been occurring in Gaza since Oct. 2023 may well be the culmination of 100 years of Zionism: Clear title to a homeland via conquest and expulsion and/or wholesale subjugation of Palestinians. The midwives to this project are the US and Britain.
I spy Steve Martin ❤️
"Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien" by Alex Vernon also caught my eye. His novel IN THE LAKE OF THE WOODS is one I find even more haunting than THE THINGS THEY CARRIED.
"Peace Is a Shy Thing: The Life and Art of Tim O’Brien" by Alex Vernon caught my eye as I am of that generation. I don't know O'Brien's work, so I went to Wesley Beal's lengthy review in the Arkansas Times. One measure the author Vernon applies to O'Brien's wartime experience is "moral injury," or "the hurt and trauma that follow from betrayal of moral virtues, especially when one is himself compromised in that betrayal." This concisely sums up the lot of draft-age US males of that era, roughly 1964-1975, and is one reason so many American males had difficulty adjusting to civilian life -- and remain bitter today.
I have been thinking something similar to moral injury is undoubtedly occurring in the Israeli military and society at large as the assault on a largely civilian population in Gaza continues. There is conscription there and even women are eligible but not certain religious sects. The "moral injury" occurring in Israel and among its friends abroad must be stupendous.
My view of the current conflict in Gaza (and the West Bank) has been decisively shaped by reading "The hundred years' war on Palestine: a history of settler colonialism and resistance, 1917-2017" by Rashid Khalidi, a Columbia University professor from a Palestinian family with deep roots in the soil and history of Palestine. It was published in 2021 and now out as a paperback. It is an academic book, deeply researched and amply documented, but also sourced from family documents involving his accomplished forebears. What has been occurring in Gaza since Oct. 2023 may well be the culmination of 100 years of Zionism: Clear title to a homeland via conquest and expulsion and/or wholesale subjugation of Palestinians. The midwives to this project are the US and Britain.